This
constitution by Estates was the natural and only just representation of
France. It grew out of the habitual conditions, relations, and
reciprocal claims of men. It grew out of the circumstances of the
country, and out of the state of property. The wretched scheme of your
present masters is not to fit the Constitution to the people, but wholly
to destroy conditions, to dissolve relations, to change the state of the
nation, and to subvert property, in order to fit their country to their
theory of a Constitution.
Until you make out practically that great work, a combination of
opposing forces, "a work of labor long, and endless praise," the utmost
caution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power,
which alone was capable of holding together the comparatively
heterogeneous mass of your States. But at this day all these
considerations are unseasonable. To what end should we discuss the
limitations of royal power? Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the
measure and standard of liberty? I doubt much, very much indeed, whether
France is at all ripe for liberty on any standard.
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